Team size: 17

Key team member: Iain Seow (general counsel and company secretary)

FOCUS ON: SHANGRI-LA LEGAL

Headquartered in Hong Kong, Shangri-La Legal oversees the group’s global legal and regulatory aff airs in over 24 countries. Its lawyers have core expertise in areas such as hotel management and operations, commercial and retail leasing, real estate, construction and development, mergers and acquisition, intellectual property, e-commerce and technology, corporate fi nance, banking and fi nance, dispute, and personal data protection. Shangri-La Legal is headed by Iain Seow, the general counsel and company secretary.

The department recently played an instrumental role in securing various industry-first sustainability-linked bank loans and bond issuance. The department is also at the vanguard of the group’s technology transformation, providing critical support in the rollout of the group’s proprietary guest reservation system, e-commerce platforms, e-direct channels, and applications. It was also responsible for supporting the opening of various new hotel properties in China and Saudi Arabia.

Shangri-La Legal has led several group-wide corporate governance-related initiatives in areas such as ESG, personal data protection, and cybersecurity. The department assisted in developing the group’s ESG framework and the implementation of its assurance program in response to new reporting requirements by the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The group’s ESG focus is on caring for the communities that it operates in. The department is also responsible for the supervision of Shangri-La Group’s privacy policy and for ensuring that its operations are updated to consider new privacy and data transfer regulations introduced in key jurisdictions such as China, Europe, Japan, Philippines, Singapore and Turkey this year.

Apart from legal matters, Shangri-La Legal is primarily responsible for the development and enforcement of the group’s code of conduct and ethics and to ensure that the group’s legal, compliance and corporate governance functions are rigorously upheld while it oversees the implementation of new laws and regulations in the jurisdictions it operates. Notably, the legal department co-heads the compliance committee that oversees whistleblowing cases, code of conduct violations, supplier and procurement integrity, employee grievances, fraud and corruption, and litigation cases. It is also part of Shangri-La’s security committee that assesses and responds to security threats such as terrorism, cyber-attacks and criminal activities against its properties worldwide.

Shangri-La Legal keeps track of all the group’s litigation and regulatory cases and provides detailed analyses of litigation trends and root causes so that proper corrective action plans can be put in place to mitigate the recurrence of such claims against group entities or properties. It is also staff ed with highly experienced specialist litigators who are deployed to manage potential disputes at initial stages to promptly establish litigation strategies. “